Rod Wong, founder of RTW Investments and former portfolio manager at Davidson Kempner, discusses the structural friction between multi-strategy funds and life sciences investing.
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“I mean, honestly, I think biotech, especially the way we, that I've always done it, which is longer term oriented, is difficult to fit in any larger firm that's not focused only on healthcare.”
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More from Rod Wong
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Wong: Doubling drug approvals to 80 will drive massive biotech value creation
“On average, we've been approving forty-ish drugs a year, and if 40 goes to 80, even if you're losing some on pricing, it should be a tremendous amount of value creation.”
Rod WongApr 24, 2023▶ 15:15Rod Wong – Empty Rooms: Innovation in Biotech at RTW (Capital Allocators, EP. 310)
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Rod WongApr 24, 2023▶ 16:04Rod Wong – Empty Rooms: Innovation in Biotech at RTW (Capital Allocators, EP. 310)
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Wong: Most asset management firms rely on lone wolf culture
“Most asset management firms, even very, very successful people, even big firms are structured as very small teams, sometimes just flat out individuals. There's a lot of lone wolf Culture.”
Rod WongApr 24, 2023▶ 20:28Rod Wong – Empty Rooms: Innovation in Biotech at RTW (Capital Allocators, EP. 310)
Insight
Wong: Academic lab cultures foster egos that complicate cross-functional management
“They are small teams that are very, very good at what they do. And you develop big personalities, big egos from that. And that's a management challenge when what you're talking about is you want people with different expertise to really come together and work …”
Rod WongApr 24, 2023▶ 21:13Rod Wong – Empty Rooms: Innovation in Biotech at RTW (Capital Allocators, EP. 310)
Insight
Wong: Biotech positions above 5% require commercial revenue support
“So we'll have larger positions that are five to 10% plus of the portfolio. That must mean that those larger positions have some kind of base business value support. They sell a drug on the market, and we're playing for the second drug. And then you have a numb…”
Rod WongApr 24, 2023▶ 36:43Rod Wong – Empty Rooms: Innovation in Biotech at RTW (Capital Allocators, EP. 310)
“We studied all these historical constipation trials, going back into the literature, and we found that phase twos, a lot of them work, and phase threes, they all fail, every single one. So empirically, we said, actually, the statistician is wrong. Doesn't matt…”
Rod WongApr 24, 2023▶ 41:57Rod Wong – Empty Rooms: Innovation in Biotech at RTW (Capital Allocators, EP. 310)
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